Still Tryin'

Being a Father, a Husband and a Teacher rightfully occupies the majority of my time these days, but I still have strong ambitions to go on adventures that allow me to reach amazing places in difficult and interesting ways.

With questionable fitness and strong motivation I successfully bike-skied Glacier Peak over Memorial Day weekend.  A history of hard work, a pinch of self-imposed suffering and the only weather window of the Cascadian Spring all contributed to the success of this excursion.

I am most thankful for the great partners who support me in this long-term project, and a wife who understands that adventure is central to the person I am. 

Kloshe Konaway

Kloshe Nanitch

Matt 

 

The Redline Conquest Classic.  Badass Bike that can handle the demands of daily commuting or light expedition.  

 The Mighty Mount Pilchuck in good spring conditions.  Best bang for your buck summit in the Cascades.  

 The Mighty Big Four.

 Where the pavement ends.

 Anticipating an un-passable washout on the North Fork of the Sauk, D. Rainey saddled up and rolled the end of the bike approach with me.  He could have driven, but stuck with his wing-man; good guy.  

 The Bears are up....and they're hungry!

 Snow line.

 D. Rainey, skinning the slopes south of White Mountain with Sloan Mountain on the horizon.

 After setting up camp and letting things firm up a bit, D & I took a leisurely evening ski!

 Skiing in T-shirts is fun.

 Pretty good campsite.

 It's like being on a moon made of snow.

Pretty ok sunset.

 Parenthood is excellent training for the Alpine Start, D. Rainey skinning the Gerdine Glacier at Sunrise.   

It is truly amazing when weather windows, calendars and fitness can sometimes align to make cool ideas become a reality.

Big Trees. 

Long ride home.

The Oso mudslide was the single-most deadly landslide disaster in the history of the United States.

Ruby Photobomb!  Man that girl is cute!

The Bicycle Story

The art of living does not consist of preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change, for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.  

~Charles Morgan

There is no denying that the adventure has changed forever here at the Front Door.   Milestones, like the first time Ruby smiled at me, bring a deeper joy than pedaling a bicycle possesses the power to do.  

Like is has for many years, the bicycle stills rolls central to through my life. It carries me daily through the dark and wet Cascadian mornings to a job in which I find meaning, and allows me to provide for the needs my family.  For all these these things I am grateful.

A few weeks ago, I was offered the opportunity sit down with Josh Cohen of the Bicycle Story over a beer and chat a little about the birth, evolution and current status of Front Door Adventures. Talking with Josh caused me to reflect a bit on my path and think about some of the things that I have been passionate about in my life.  It also sparked fond reminiscing of days spent spinning lonely mountain roads, my bike laden heavily with the kit of adventure and the gentle whisper of fear and self-doubt propelling me onward.  

I admire Josh's passion and thoughtful approach to the story of the bicycle and I had a heck of a lot of fun talking to him.  I also owe him a thank you for getting me contemplating again about the social and environmental impact of my recreational pursuits, and my next move here at the Front Door.

You can listen to the full podcast here.

Kloshe Konaway
Kloshe Nanitch 

Matt

 

Happy Family.

And Then There Were Three

It is my opinion that the richest of adventures often wonder far from their intended path.  They abound with unforeseen departures, trials and triumphs that stretch the physical, mental and spiritual fortitude of the travelers.

Seldom do best expeditions arrive exactly at their betrothed destination.

If someone would have told me a couple years ago that tonight I would lay content, gazing at my infant daughter blissfully dozing on the steady rise and fall of my chest, I would have likely laughed in their face.  What I thought was my path of freedom, happiness and Adventure certainly didn't include the responsibility of parenthood.

Spending much time in the presence of family and the love and faith I have in my wife catalyzed a change in my heart, and seven days after the birth of my beautiful daughter I simply cannot imagine a life without her.  The pace may slow down a little here at the Front Door for a while, but I am confident that the uncertainly and joy that Ruby Ruth has brought to my life will guarantee the adventure continues to be grand one.

Kloshe Konaway
Kloshe Nanitch

Matt

BFF:  My stunning wife J.Hurst-Alford (photo:  Brock Mason Photography)

Love Birds (photo:  Brock Mason Photography)

Tummy time with Daddy! 

 Ruby fired up about her first bath.

 My heart has been stolen.

Staycation

All good things arrive unto them that wait-and don't die in the meantime.
~Mark Twain

The Paul Quibell was born of an impulse buy, a bike crash and the kindness of friends.  Thank you Jason, Uncle Lincoln, and Erbeck Sr.  

The Adventure doesn't currently travel far from the Front Door.

Five months pedaling across this great country, another five hopping around the globe and eight weeks living on a fishing boat in Alaska has a way of leaving a guy with little desire to go anywhere that he can't arrive at by foot or his trusty single-speed bike.

The Surly hangs naked in the man shed, stripped of her usefulness awaiting a new life of adventure.   Perfect autumn days in the Northwest offer glimpses of the Olympic Mountains fifty miles to the west, stoking the embers of ambition in my belly.  I find myself pouring over maps and guide books,  dreaming up ridiculous human powered expeditions that my current level of fitness doesn't even come close to supporting.  All in good time, I tell myself.

Among the many truths that became abundantly apparent in the past year is that I am not getting any younger; the fuse is burning.  There are still many things that I wish to do and precious little time to pull them all off.  I also know that some things should not be rushed and close to home is a good place for me right now.  Chances are the mountains and the crags will still be there in the spring and when Seattle emerges from the dank of winter, I will be ready to answer their call.

For now though, my daily pedal to work in the dark mist of the Seattle mornings puts a smile on my face and keeps me rolling in the right direction.

Kloshe konaway
Kloshe nanitch

Matt

 I picked up this hand built frame at JRA in Greenwood for a $100.  Anyone know Mr. Quibell?

 Urban bouldering is my new hobby.  5.11 without using a car, we'll see what happens.

Rad FDA with my best Adventure Buddy ever.  Canoe and a Cold One on Lake Washington.

The Last Place on Earth

Glassy water in Ugashik.

Streams of stubborn white clouds fight the encroaching high pressure, gripping for life to the snowcapped summit of 7000 foot Mount Chiginagak some sixty miles to the southeast. The view that has been teasing me for the past two days is beginning to materialize. Steam lazily  piles off the mountain's lateral vent, reminding all that while today the dragon sleeps,  tomorrow she may waken in a foul temper.  

The forecasted winds of ten knots have not yet arrived; I am thankful for the gift of a steady boat as I calmly  float in the watershed which carries a vulgar reputation for big winds, nasty river bars and challenging working conditions.  A permeating scent, the mixture of bag balm, sunscreen and fish assaults my nostrils; offensive but none the less effective in masking the rotten stench of three men living and working on this little boat for the past 21 days.  

KDLG, the local NPR station breaks the peaceful silence.  Open Line callers ramble on for what seems an eternity, uninterrupted by the patiently polite host. Radio waves carry messages of love to fisherman and unhurried greetings to relatives in villages so remote that cell phone towers have yet to invaded their skylines. 

The season is winding down.

We caught 3000 pounds of fish yesterday and are within spitting distance of our 100,000 pound goal.  While the psychological pressures of this line of work wear heavily, a successful harvest and being able to count the remaining boat days on one hand seems to keep us all acting benevolently towards each other.  A steady stream of jumpers and sharp dorsal fins breaking the surface of the shallows near the muddy shore affirm a late push of fish are riding the flood upstream.  

Sometimes I can't believe this is all real.

Less than one hundred and fifty-years ago, I imagine that my home in the Puget Sound looked something similar to what greets my eyes now.  Mount Rainier towering over hills covered with ancient fir trees so thick that ten men linking arms could not surround.  Sockeye Salmon choking the clear running rivers that trickle westward from the glaciers of the Cascade Mountains.  Progress however, has changed much of that and while the Northwest is still a beautiful place, it is not the same.

When Seattle was born in the late 1800's, city planners chopped down hills  and dumped millions of tons of fill into Elliot bay, erasing the homes, sacred places of worship and livelihood of the Duwamish people who had been living there for thousands of years.  We fell most of the old trees and built a robust, but short-lived logging industry for several generations, but annihilated the fragile riparian zones of small streams vital to a breeding salmon.  We built hydroelectric dams that were instrumental in crushing Hilter's war machine and helping the Pacific Northwest build one of the strongest and most sustainable economies in the world, but decimated the salmon runs in Washington's great rivers.

While concentrated environmental and economic efforts have saved Pacific Salmon from extinction, they have largely gone from the Northwest and will not likely return in great numbers until the world as we know it ceases to exist.  In 2013 the US Department of Commerce declared the Washington Frasier River Sockeye a "disaster fishery" citing a 97% drop in revenue over the previous 5-year average.  Last week the Seattle PI reported a  sludge pond breach at the Imperial Mines Mount Polly gold and copper pit, which resulted in millions of liters of toxic phosphorus, copper, zinc, cobalt, selenium, arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium flowing into the most prime of Frasier River Salmon spawning beds.  I fear this may be a final blow to a dying run and it saddens me beyond tears.

Living in the world that we do has caused me great depression at times, and I am guilty of often sinking into the pits of pessimism.  But the fact of the matter is that we cannot go backwards in the reality we have created; we may only go onward and do our best to create the world we wish our next to generation to inherit.
We are empowered to make decisions every day which have an impact on the health of our environment, and subsequently our own well-being.  I write these words not because I am paid to, but because something that became very dear to me this summer is under grave and immediate threat and I feel moved to action.  Northern Dynasty, a Canadian mining company has proposed the development of one of the largest open pit mines in the world to be located at the headwaters of the Kvichak and Nushagak Rivers; two of the eight mighty rivers that make up the Bristol Bay watershed.  The environmental threat of building a toxic waste dump in the center of the habitat which sustains one of the last great wild salmon runs on Earth cannot be overstated.

Fisherman fighting multi-national mining cooperations is a laughingly lopsided battle. Money is the king of capitalism and more people in the world desire metal dependent smart phones and laptop computers than care about one of the most important historical, economic and cultural icons of North America.  It is also likely true that the "economic potential" of a  pebble mine in Bristol Bay far outweighs that of the fishery and tourism that now sustains economy of this far corner of the world.  But I guarantee that when the last ounce of gold is stripped from the ground and the fish are all gone, these cooperations will pick up and move to someone else's back yard.  In my heart of hearts I hope that our government cares sufficiently about our environmental legacy to stop the development of this mine.

The irony that I write this piece on a laptop computer is not lost on me.  The human condition is wrought with contradiction and I am by no means exempt from being part of the problem.  However, I feel with passion that we must protect the few sacred natural  renewable resources we have left on this planet and do everything within our power to keep a few places in the world wild.  The threat posed by this project is far too great.  

I highly encourage you to follow the links I have provided below and educate yourself on the issue.  There are always two sides of a story, and never should we blindly accept information we receive from others.  If you are moved to do so, please take a moment to follow this link to the Commercial Fisherman of Bristol Bay website and send the prepared statement to the Environmental Protection Agency urging the passage of proposed protection of Bristol Bay under the Clean Water Act.  I also provided a link to the critically acclaimed film series In the Same Boat.  This documentary poetically illustrates the lives of Bristol Bay Fisherman and I hope you take a few minutes to watch. 

The fight is far from over and needs your support. 
  

Hyas Mahsie

Matt

Additional resources:

Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association

Commercial Fisherman for Bristol Bay

The Pebble Partnership

In the Same Boat

Password for Films:  bristolbay1

The Dent of Alaska

Home.   Sweet home.
Clean sheets, warm showers, a bed that doesn't sway with the ocean and reek with the putrid stench of three men living and working on a thirty two foot boat for five long weeks.  Despite the fact that Steady Freddy undoubtedly runs the finest kitchen in Bristol Bay, my beautiful wife's home cooking is second to none and nourishes the little aches and pains slowly from this aging vessel of mine.

There is a grand story to be told of the time I was a rookie deck hand aboard the F/V Potential on Bristol Bay.  It is a rich tale, full of characters larger than life and events that one simply must see to believe.  Thomas Jefferson once said, The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.  The truth is also that some stories should exist only in oral legend until they fade from the memory of those who were there, and become the mist that fogs the space between the fact and fiction of our history.  I will be brief.

I left for Alaska a couple months ago seeking an adventure, but with the eyes and mind of a tourist.   Fishing however, has a way of changing a man and pushed me places where I could never have driven myself.   The things I learned being a thirty-six year old greenhorn in a game where nobody gives a fuck about where you went to college, the letters in front of your name, or what you think you may have accomplished in your last job has taught me more than I ever could have anticipated.  As I lifted off the runway of Dillingham last week, leaving the clean water, expansive green tundra and steaming volcanoes of Southwest Alaska below,  I realized that in my chest no longer beat the heart of a traveler, but that of a fisherman.

Bristol Bay didn't leave an impression on me, it left a dent.  Alaska is in my future.

Kloshe konaway
Kloshe nanitch

Matt

The Usual Suspects (photo: Luke Brummer)

When it comes to chow, Skippy takes care of the boys and Freddy don't mess around.  This did not come out of a can. 

Alaskan Wild Iris (Iris setosa)…I think.

The Groover.  Yep, that's it for the boat. 

 Fresh caught Alaskan King Cakes anyone?  Tom Douglas ain't got shit on Fast Freddy.

Daniel San entrusted with the filleting of the King. 

The seals aren't dumb and a gill net full of salmon spells an all you can eat buffet to these clever mammals.

Salmon angels on a 12,000 pound day.  You know the fishing is good when Skippy stops to take photos. 

A three thousand pound round haul is an experience that one enjoys telling stories about, but not necessarily repeating.

Always a highlight of the day!

Pink at night; sailors delight.  

 Skippy gently explaining the intricate details concerning chain of command aboard the F/V Potential to Freddy and me.

Tender lines suck bad, but it's hard to be bent when the sky looks like this. 


Hydration stop.  Naknek, Alaska.

 How fish gets to market after it is caught.  Tender boat, processing boat, transport boat.

It's good to be loved and I imagine the only thing that beats mail on a boat is mail in jail.  Same same, but different. 

Matt's view for most of the summer. 

Boxing drills make the long hours of scratch fishing pass a little faster and keep you warm on snotty Bristol Bay days. 

 The Alaska State Patrol is unabashed in their presence on the Johnston Hill Line.

Ghost River.  I have the upmost respect for the fish that we harvest from the ocean.  The cycle that sustains this ecosystem never ceases to amaze me, even as the rotting carcasses of spawned fish ride the rip tide down the river.

Freddy is the Man.  Bacon donuts with maple syrup. 

 It's not about the shit you get into, it's how you get out of it~Frank Cranborne F/V Herbert Cecil.  

Some quick thinking and fancy driving kept our net from wrapping the Alaskan Reefer…by about six inches.

 BfF.  Skippy and Freddy have been fishing together a long time,  and boats have a way of bringing out the best and worst in all of us.  I respect their ability to maintain a tight friendship despite the stress that is inherent to fishing and living in a small space.  

Kowalski is a legend.  True friends send you treats in the mail!

 You can take a boy out of Pullman, but you can never take the Pullman out of a boy.

 Your friends will make fun of you for a long time if you do this and manage not to sink your boat.

 Steak, real mashed potatoes and fresh greens celebrate 100,000 pounds of catch in the 2014 season.  As much as I like eating rice and fish every day,  I feel pretty fortunate to work for a guy who understands that what you put in your employees is directly related to what you get out of them.

 Mount Chiginangak dominates the skyline of the Ugashik watershed and makes me imagine what the Puget Sound may have looked like one hundred years ago.  High ski potential.

As much as I like bears, I didn't mind not running into this fella. 

Be advised that entering into a practical joke competition with Myagi likely won't turn out in your favor.

 Beard love.  When I told Jenny that I was going to shave clean she begged me to keep the nest.  I compromised with a  number four trim.  

 Smoked Chum love.

That about sums it up.  (Photo credit:  Luke Brummer)